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Scavenger Hunt

I never pictured myself searching my house for a puddle of pee, but that’s exactly what happened tonight.

Sam’s 21 months old now, and he’s very excited about the prospect of going in the potty. Not that he’s actually done it or anything, but it sure looks fun when Elmo does it. We’ve put him on the potty a few times to no avail, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten.

This afternoon we all went out to play in the snow (I will post pictures of Sam dressed in a blanket sleeper, two pairs of his dad’s socks – his boots won’t fit anymore – and Kate’s old purple jacket and pink hat with pom poms as soon as I get them uploaded. Oh and he also had pink socks on his hands because I couldn’t find his gloves). In any case, when we got back in, he looked at me and said “poopy!” I said “Did you poop?” and he said no, but said yes when I asked him if he needed to. He said “Let’s go!” and off to the potty we ran. Again, nothing happened, but I had the bright idea to leave his diaper off for a while. I put some Baby Legs on him and let him run free.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, we tried the potty thing off and on, but he didn’t do anything. He hadn’t had any accidents either, so I thought he would surely have to do something soon. I wanted to give it one last try before putting him to bed, so I sat him on the potty and let him read “Elmo Goes Potty” for a while. As he was enjoying his reading time, I took his Baby Legs off since I was going to put him in his jammies. At that point, I realized the Baby Legs were wet. I had cleaned up (what I thought was) juice he spilled a little bit earlier, and I couldn’t tell if what was on them was juice or pee. (The sniff test was inconclusive, if you can believe that.) So I decided to ask him.

Me: Sammy, what is on your socks?
Sammy: Juice!
Me: Is it juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee!
Me: Did you pee pee on your socks?
Sammy: No! Juice!
Me: So is this juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee.
Me: Where is the rest of the pee pee?
Sammy: Socks.
Me: I know this is on your socks, but where is the rest? Where did you pee pee?
Sammy: In Daddy’s room.
Me: You pee peed in Daddy’s room?
Sammy: No. Pee pee in the potty.
Me: No, you didn’t pee pee in the potty. Can you show me where the pee pee is?
Sammy: Daddy’s room!

So we went to Daddy’s room (which incidentally is also my room). I looked at the carpet critically, but didn’t see anything. As I looked around the bathroom floor in our room, it occurred to me that I was searching my house for a pool of pee. Never thought I’d do that, but disturbingly it seemed perfectly normal. I guess I am officially fully entrenched in parenthood.

Eventually I found what I was looking for – on the floor next to Sammy’s chair at the kitchen table. The chair on which he likes to stand. Next to the table on which I had earlier cleaned up “spilled juice.”

Can someone pass the Lysol wipes?

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Wii-lational problems

As I mentioned last week, a Wii came to live at our house this Christmas. And, it is pretty much the most fun thing ever, despite the fact that my 5-year-old can kick my butt in bowling (because I have run-ruled him at baseball twice. So THERE!)

But. When it comes to my three-year-old, my little Sophie, we are having some Wii-lational difficulties. Sophie isn’t quite at the stage where she can play the games, but she is at the stage where she loves watching them. And by “loves”, I mean she is utterly obsessed. Yesterday she spent a good part of the day trying to convince me to play, since her brother had gone back to school and wasn’t there to entertain her with Mario Kart, or her favorite, Super Mario Bros. She throws huge, heartbroken crying fits when we turn it off, or if we tell her it’s not time to play.

Instead of playing with all of her fabulous toys on her fabulous new shelf, she goes over to said shelf and stares longingly at the top level where we keep the Wii stuff, out of her reach.

It’s very fun to listen to her cute commentary on all the games (“Nice spare, mama!” on bowling, or more often, “Whoops. Try again!” and “Be careful Joshua!” on MarioKart), but I can’t sit around playing Wii all day, as much as I’d like to, and she shouldn’t be staring at Wii all day instead of playing.

The last couple of days my little stubborn miss has let me know just how displeased she is with the decreasing volume of Wii-watching in her life. So, the battle is on! And it’s much less fun than a Wii tennis match!

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If, When

Growing up I always wanted a big family. First I would say, “I want five or six kids.” I remember once when Bobby and I were talking about it early in our marriage and he said he thought two was a good number and I was horrified. Then I had one, and even though he was a pretty easy baby, I thought, ok, “I’d like three.”

Then I had a second, and she was, um, let’s say, difficult. Because I was violently ill for about the first 15 weeks of my pregnancy with her, I was already feeling before she was even born, that there was no way I could possibly go through that again. Still, when I was on the operating table after Sophie was born, when my doctor asked me if I wanted her to tie my tubes, I said no. Because I was 29, and I just wasn’t ready to say that my childbearing years were over.

And then in the ensuing weeks, the transition from being a mother of one to being a mother of two pretty much solidified it for me. I was done. Even though, after I decided that, I would get sad thinking of that bunch of kids I wanted to have that I was not going to have.

But now, over three years later, I wonder. I’m 32, if we’re gonna do this, we should do this. But can we? Do we want to? I’ve already told my mom to put away her hopes and the high chair she keeps in her dining room.

I’m doing so well on my depression/anxiety meds, do I want to mess with that? I really don’t.

But sometimes, looking at our two amazing kids, Bobby and I look at each other, and say, “Wow we make amazing kids. Maybe we need another one.”

And seeing baby Marler be born…it made me sad that I’ll never have that again.

All our baby stuff has long since been given away. We would really have to start over. And we don’t know if we want to or not.

So how did you know when you were done?

(P.S. Mom, please do not get excited.)

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